by Lindsay Deutsch, USA TODAY

by Lindsay Deutsch, USA TODAY

What if you found out that all your hard work and research over 30 years had finally paid off?

Cry? Hug? Pop bubbly?

That's what happened to Stanford physics professor Andre Linde on Monday when assistant professor Chao-Kin Kuo knocked on his door unexpectedly with a camera crew and a big reveal.

Kuo arrived with a surprise that would make Linde's day - and probably, career. Kuo's work with the BICEP2 telescope at the South Pole had picked up gravitational waves that could be traced to right before the Big Bang, which proves the theory of inflation.

And for Linde, the "founding father of inflation," it's the first direct evidence for his cosmic inflation theory, which he worked on prominently in the 1980s, the moment of proof he's been waiting for.

The reveal, captured in a video by Kurt Hickman with the Stanford University News Service, is as heartwarming and emotional as you'd expect.

When Kuo knocks on the door and tells the news, Linde's wife, Stanford physics professor Renata Kallosh, immediately goes in for a hug. Linde himself stands happy and dumbfounded, asking Kuo to repeat his findings.

"It's probably some kind of delivery! Did you order anything? Yes, I ordered 30 years ago. Finally it arrived!" he says.

"This is a moment of understanding of nature of such a magnitude that it just overwhelms. Let's just hope it's not a trick."